The B Side of the Albom

Being from Michigan and a former Detroit Free Press paperboy and an occasional reader of Mitch Albom, Eric Scheske finds Albom's alleged fraud about MSU players meeting at a tournament game interesting. LINK. The MSU column is vintage Albom: waxing about an event with insight into human emotions. Except here, it appears Albom was using only his insight and making the facts fit what he thinks would be the emotional case. The whole thing reminds us of Alex Beam's discussion of Mitch Albom and his The Five People You Meet in Heaven back in 2003. LINK. When we read Beam, we kind of got the impression that Albom had appointed himself the arbiter of what happens in the next life, as a person with special insight, and molded his vision of heaven to fit it. And now he's done the same thing with a story about former MSU players at a tournament game. We're probably reading too much into it, but something about Albom–his boyish smugness?–bugs us and we've never been able to pinpoint the irritation. Perhaps this allegation gives us a clue. In Albom's writing, fraud meshes with sincerity. Perhaps it's the type of fraud that says, "I have so much insight, I can overlook the facts."

Then again, maybe he's just so busy with ESPN's The Sports Reporter and his syndicated radio talk show and his regular column that he took a short cut. We don't purport to have insight into someone's emotional state. That's Albom's specialty, and, based on this recent allegation, one that he apparently values more than truth.